Generally, topic-based authoring means that your content pages are treated as individual topics that should be reusable in any order. You are limited to creating one set of content in HelpNDoc, and the platform converts your documentation into your preferred formats. You can only structure your content down to the topic level and no further, which may be restrictive when managing large amounts of documentation. The content in HelpNDoc is not marked up with metadata that can tell you what the content is for. HelpNDoc is aimed at producing a much smaller amount of documentation than you would in a tool like Flare. While you can single source your content, HelpNDoc does not support structured content like XML or DITA. Your site will need to be hosted on your own servers, and you’ll have to edit and regenerate the new files within HelpNDoc every time you need to update your documentation.ģ. A lack of support for structured content And while HelpNDoc produces the code for your website, the company does not host the site for you. If you want a more customised design for your site, then you will need to code it yourself. You must instead choose from a more limited colour palette included in the system. In HelpNDoc, you cannot fully customise your HTML files to conform to your brand guideline. Also, it does not produce a user-friendly website out of your documentation – developing and deploying a live site will still be your job. HelpNDoc is designed for developers and you can use the script editor to automate repetitive tasks.Īs a result of its close resemblance to Microsoft Word and developer-focus, HelpNDoc does lack a modern User Interface that you would normally find in SaaS solutions like Document360. It displays code samples in different languages: C/C++, Delphi/Pascal, Fortran 90⁄95, PowerBASIC and Visual Basic. It also supports online HTML documentation for a website, printable PDF or Word documentation, and can output to ePUB and Kindle. Your documentation files are platform-independent until you choose to output them to a particular format.Īs we mentioned earlier, HelpNDoc can output compiled CHM help files for desktop Windows applications. This means you manage your content in a centralised database, which is housed in HelpNDoc. HelpNDoc allows you to single source your documentation for a number of different formats and outputs. For users from other backgrounds, the design may not quite be in keeping with other software tools they are used to. For traditional Windows users, this design will probably be very easy to use. Overall, it has a Windows-95 era look and feel. The same applies if you want to use your own toolchain outside the Microsoft ecosystem.Īs a result of this Windows focus, HelpNDoc is also designed more to look like a traditional Microsoft Word interface and uses the horizontal ribbon design. This won’t be a problem if your whole company uses Windows, but if you use HelpNDoc and want to collaborate with other writers they may not be using a compatible system. There is no way to make HelpNDoc work on any system other than Windows. If you require your Help Authoring Tool to work on a Mac or Linux OS, then you will need to consider choosing another tool. CHM files (compiled HTML files) which are specific to Windows applications. It’s specially designed to work well within the Microsoft and Windows ecosystem, and integrate with Microsoft development tools like Microsoft HTML Help Workshop. A lack of support for non-Windows Operating Systemsįirst of all, HelpNDoc is only available on a Windows Operating System.
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